Love, Burns is the name Phil Sutton uses to record and release a brand of graceful indie pop that's spiced with political fire in the belly to go along with its romantic heart. Over a long career in indie rock, Sutton featured in a number of bands with a similar bent (from
Comet Gain to the Pale Lights); this is his first time calling the shots, and on the 2022 album
It Should Have Been Tomorrow, he proves up to the task.
Sutton began his musical career while living in London, first as drummer for
Comet Gain in their early incarnation, which began in 1992 and ran until 1997. He then served a short time in
Velocette before forming his own group, Kicker. Their sound was similar to that of
Comet Gain, but Sutton wrote and sang this time around. The band lasted until he moved to America in the mid-2000s. Once there, he formed another group, the Soft City, to carry on his vision of thoughtful, jangling pop. The group lasted long enough to record a couple of singles and an LP before splitting when most of the band moved out of New York. He regrouped with a new cast of characters under the name the Pale Lights and picked right up where Soft City left off, releasing scores of singles, and LPs in 2014 (Before There Were Pictures) and 2017 (The Stars Seemed Brighter). Around the same time they issued a single in 2020, Sutton pivoted to making a solo recordings under the name
Love, Burns. Working with
Gary Olson (formerly of
Ladybug Transistor) at his Marlborough Farms studio in Brooklyn, and with
Kyle Forester at home, the band debuted with the eight-song Fiftieth and Marlborough mini-album in 2020. The sound was very similar to that of his previous bands: a
Lloyd Cole-type crooner fronting a Sarah Records band, with a slightly more introspective and sometimes political lyrical stance. Future singles added drummer Hampus Öhman-Frölund and guitarist Ben Phillipson -- who had played with Sutton in Kicker -- to the mix of musicians. On album
It Should Have Been Tomorrow, the same crew was on board, while ex-Kicker member Laura Bridge, Alicia Jeanine of
the Jeannines, and Lake Ruth's Hewson Chen chimed in with contributions as well. The record was released in early 2022 by Sutton's Calico Cat label along with Jigsaw Records, Austin Town Hall Records, and Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten in Germany. ~ Tim Sendra